Passage 18
If you know exactly what you want, the best route to a job is to get specialized training. A recent survey shows that companies the graduates in such fields as business and health care who can go to work immediately with very little on-the-job training.
That's especially true of booing fields that are challenging for workers. At Cornell's School of Hotel Administration, for example, bachelor's degree graduates get an average of four or five job offers with salaries ranging from the high teens to the low 20s and plenty of chances for rapid advancement. Large companies, especially, like a background of formal education coupled with work experience.
But in the long run, too much specialization doesn't pay off. Business, which has been flooded with MBAs, no longer considers the degree an automatic stamp of approval. The MBA may open doors and command a higher salary injtially, but the impact of a degree washes out after five years.
As further evidence of the erosion (销蚀) of corporate(公司的) faith in specialized degrees, Michigan State’s Scheetz cites a pattern in corporate hiring practices, Although companies tend to take on specialists as new hires, they often seek out gencralists for middle and upper-level management. “They want someone who isn’t constrained(限制)by nuts and bolts to look at the big picture,”says Scheetz.
This sounds suspiciously like a formal statement that you approve of the liberal-arts graduate. Time and again labor-market analysts mention a need for talents that liberal-arts majors are assumed to have: writing and communication skills, organizational skills, open-mindedness and adapeability, and the ability to analyze and solve problems, David Birch claims he does not hire anybody with an MBA or an engineering degree, “I hire only liberal-arts people because they have a less-than-canned way of doing things,” says Birch. Liberal-arts means an academically thorough and strict program that includes literature, history, mathematics, economics, science, human behavior—plus a computer course or two. With that under your belt, you can feel free to specialize, “A liberal-arts degree coupled with an MBA or some other technical training is a very good combination in the marketplace,” says Scheetz.
1. What kinds of people are in high demand on the job market?
A) Students with a bachelor's degree in humanities.
B) People with an MBA degree front top universities.
C) People with formal schooling plus work experience.
D) People with special training in engineering
2. By saying “…but the impact of a degree washes out after five years” (Line 3, Para, 3), the author means ________.
A) most MBA programs fail to provide students with a solid foundation
B) an MBA degree does not help promotion to managerial positions
C) MBA programs will not be as popular in five years' time as they are now
D) in five people will forget about the degree the MBA graduates have got
3. According to Scheetz's statement (Lines 4-5. Para. 4), companies prefer ________.
A) people who have a strategic mind
B) people who are talented in fine arts
C) people who are ambitious and aggressive
D) people who have received training in mechanics
4. David Birch claims that he only hires liberal-arts people because ________.
A) they are more capable of handling changing situations
B) they can stick to established ways of solving problems
C) they are thoroughly trained in a variety of specialized fields
D) they have attended special programs in management
5. Which of the following statements does the author support?
A) Specialists are more expensive to hire than generalists.
B) Formal schooling is less important than job training.
C) On-the-job training is, in the long run, less costly.
D) Generalists will outdo specialists in management.
